


When a Bandit Falls in Love with a Princess

by QueenNeehola



Category: Dragon Quest Series, Dragon Quest VIII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, M/M, Pining, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-16 19:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10577979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenNeehola/pseuds/QueenNeehola
Summary: Red isn't sure what she expects, tagging along with Yangus's crew.  Adventure, certainly.  Treasure, hopefully.  Falling for a princess of all people, and one turned into a horse by a curse at that--not in the slightest.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is based on the 3ds port of dragon quest viii, where red joins the party and is a playable character. also, the hero is referred to as eight, eight/yangus is a background pairing, and there are endgame spoilers mentioned.
> 
> (this is also a practice in writing mini chapters rather than one longer fic, so sorry if it feels weird re: pacing!)

Red isn’t really sure what she expects, deciding to tag along with Yangus and his esteemed _guv_.  Adventure, certainly.  Treasure, hopefully.  Something to get the long-forgotten adrenaline flowing through her veins again.

 

Yangus catching her by the arm on board the ship and explaining that the horse she had stolen was actually a princess under a curse, and that the weird green goblin travelling with the group was actually the princess’s father, a _king_ …well, _that_ she didn’t expect in the slightest.

It throws her for a loop, and she finds she can barely look at the horse—princess— _Medea_ any more.  She feels almost like she should _apologise_ to the beast—not a beast?  A young woman, _royalty_ —it’s all so confusing, and Red decides to forget about it, and focus on the fight against Rhapthorne that she’s been dragged into.

 

Until, that is, the group decide to take a detour back to an apparent magical spring.  Red’s heard of it before, vaguely, somewhere in a book about Things To Do And See (And Steal) In Argonia, but she’s never been one for believing in silly fairy tales like that.

Then again, she didn’t believe in curses before, either.

 

 

She believes when she sees the princess’s true form with her own eyes; Medea’s raven hair and soft features, her bright smile when she chatters to Eight, her gentle eyes when she kneels to stroke Trode’s wrinkled, cursed cheek.

Medea finds time to introduce herself to Red with a polite curtsey, to clasp the bandit’s roughened hands in her impossibly soft own two and thank her for joining their cause in the most genuine, heartfelt display of words Red has been on the receiving end of in a _long_ time; the bandit finds herself speechless, not to mention a little flustered—

And then, Medea turns back into a horse.

And Goddess, Red can’t stop thinking about her.  _Human_ her, obviously.  Not horse her.  That would be weird.

 

 

Yangus starts to poke fun at her for suddenly taking such an interest in “the ’orse-princess”—making the group take breaks when the carriage starts to fall behind, brushing Medea’s mane, making sure she’s kept warm when sleeping outside at night—and Red, in turn, gives him a dead arm and a new threat every time he mentions it.  Angelo snarks a little too, but he’s wise enough to keep a decent distance and not speak too loudly.  Plus, Jessica looks ready to murder him for her own reasons most of the time, and for that Red’s quietly thankful.  She doesn’t _want_ to have to give the pretty boy a black eye, so if Jessica does it _for_ her, then that’s okay by her.

 

* * *

 

 

They manage one last trip back to the spring before they plan to fly to the Black Citadel.  Everyone is tired and sore, and no one talks much, but Medea, free of her curse for a precious few minutes, chatters away enough for all of them.

 

They camp there that night, and Red wakes in the middle of the night to a gentle nudge at her shoulder.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” Medea says, human once more, “but I just couldn’t sleep, and I felt that I just must talk to someone.”

Silently thrilled that Medea chose _her_ of all people to spill her guts to, Red listens attentively and rips at the grass beneath where they sit as the princess talks a mile a minute, trying to get it all out before the springwater wears off again.  Medea talks of Rhapthorne, of course, and of the threat to the world and the curse and her hopes of it being alleviated—and her fears of it remaining even if they manage to defeat the Lord of Darkness.  But she also talks of her marriage, of how deeply and secretly she despises Prince Charmles—and Red’s never met the boy but oh, how _she_ hates him too—and how she admires Red for being a free spirit, driven by her own desires and whims instead of living duty-bound.

Red smiles and stays silent, cursing herself for being too cowardly to act on her biggest desire at that moment.  The princess is right _there_ , all soft edges in the moonlight and _human_ , just for the briefest of moments—but Red sits on her own shaking hands until Medea succumbs to the curse again.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing red and yangus's accent is...certainly an experience.

“You wot!?”

Red rocks a little harder in her chair, averting her eyes from Yangus.  It’s been some months since the ragtag group had defeated Rhapthorne and lifted Trode and Medea’s curse—and only a few days since Red and Yangus had received invitations to Medea and Charmles’s wedding, written in the princess’s own hand.

“Red,” Yangus tries again, “are you seriously tellin’ me—”

“Don’t!” Red cuts him off, twisting suddenly in her seat to viciously point at him.  “ _Don’t_ you dare lecture me about this, Yangus—not when you can’t even tell yer precious guv you wanna shack up wiv ’im.”

Yangus beams red in a matter of seconds, which Red considers a personal victory, but she knows he has a point, and _he_ knows he has a point, and so he keeps going anyway.  “I don’t—I mean, I s’pose— _anyways,_ don’t go changin’ the subject on me!” He points a finger at Red, mirroring her pose, and she reclines into her rocking chair with a pout.  “You ’av to tell ’er!”

“Tell ’er wot, exactly?” Red shoots back.  “I can’t exactly just write a letter, can I?  ‘Dear Princess Medea, pretty _please_ don’t marry that ’orrible twerp Charmless and marry me instead’, is that it?”  Red barks a self-deprecating laugh and shakes her head.  “I don’t fink so.”

Yangus is silent for a moment, and Red chances a glance at him.  He looks deep in thought, which is…troubling.

“Wot?” she asks.

After a moment, he answers.  “Ya…ya never said ya wanted to _marry_ ’er.”

This time it’s Red’s turn to flush scarlet, and Yangus narrowly dodges the knife that she lobs at him—it whistles past his right ear and lodges itself in the doorframe.  “ _OUT_!” Red roars, and Yangus turns tail and flees.

 

* * *

 

 

Trodain Castle still feels impossibly prestigious, and Red still feels impossibly out of place, fiddling at her furs as she trails up the stairs towards Medea’s bedroom.  Her fingers itch, and she wishes there was something, _anything_ she was allowed to steal, some semblance of her old life, where everything was normal and she wasn’t on her way to confess her love to a princess and no doubt make a monumental arse of herself at the same time.  Her eyes flit from expensive vases to more expensive paintings as she mentally maps the myriad of caves and troves she’s looted where she can hole herself up for the rest of her life when things inevitably go south.

_Not even just a princess, neither_ , Red thinks, _a princess who’s about to get bloody hitched an’ all!  Red the ’omewrecker, that’s me._

To his credit, the guard outside Medea’s room _does_ try to stop Red.  Sort of.

“The princess is not currently receiving visitors,” he says, but he shrinks into himself with every approaching step Red takes, and with a particularly vicious twist of her mouth and a lingering hand depositing a few gold pieces into his pocket, he whimpers and relinquishes his post.

 

 

Medea turns quickly at the sound of her door being opened, the alarm in her eyes lasting barely a moment until she recognises her sudden visitor, and then she positively _lights up_.  Red’s stomach ties itself in a knot.

“Red!” Medea exclaims, hurrying across the room to embrace the bandit.  Red hesitates to reciprocate, and by the time she’s made up her mind to at least put a hand on Medea’s back, the princess has already pulled away.  “I didn’t expect you to arrive so soon!  Is Yangus here as well?  I heard you two were working together—how exciting!  I’m so happy you two have reconciled.  It’s so good to see you, you really haven’t changed a bit!”

Medea continues to babble on, but all Red can focus on is her gentle hold on Red’s arms and the soft, unstyled waves in her hair, swept back by her own fair hand.  _Goddess above, yer too beautiful to marry that Charmless twit._

Red is unaware her voice has even betrayed her until she sees the way Medea’s lips falter and then press into a thin line, and the questioning upturn of her eyebrows.  When it hits her that she’s spoken aloud, and what she’s _said_ , Red tears away from Medea, throwing herself to the other end of the lavish room in a heartbeat.

“Red,” Medea is saying, but the blood is screaming through Red’s ears too loudly to hear her.  Red turns away, doesn’t want to see the expression on Medea’s face. 

“That…was a mistake,” Red says, or thinks she does, and then she sees the door.  _No, don’t_ , but again her body acts without her permission, and she barely feels the polished metal of the doorknob against her palm or hears the startled gasp of the young guard before she’s flinging herself down the stairs at maximum velocity.

 

She doesn’t stop until she’s far enough outside the castle grounds to see the tiny chapel on the edge of the forest.

“Fuck,” she breathes, coiling at the base of a tree.  It’s more of a hiss than a word—a sound of frustration, horror and shame all at once.

 

 Red trusts that Medea won’t send anyone looking for her.

She doesn’t.


	3. Chapter 3

“Red.”

Red takes a swig from her bottle, swallowing hard.  She’s not entirely sure what sort of alcohol it’s meant to be—she’d won it in a bet from some deadbeat in Pickham and it had sat on her shelf ever since—but it’s making the edges of her mind just fuzzy enough to not care.

“Red,” Yangus tries again, making a grab at the bottle.  Red still has enough self-awareness to dodge and shoot him a razor-sharp glare.  For once, he glares right back.  “It’s been a _month_.  Jus’… _talk_ to me, Red.”  At least she’d let him in this time.  It was an improvement, albeit a small one.

Red takes another gulp.  Her face twists and she kicks off hard from the floor, sending her chair rocking dangerously far back.  The mystery booze really does _not_ taste good.  She clears her throat and sees Yangus open his mouth again, no doubt to needle her with yet more awkward good intentions.  “An’ say what?” she cuts him off, and his mouth snaps shut again.  “’Zactly.  You know what ’appened.”

“I _don’t_ ,” Yangus implores, risking a step forward.  Red lets him.  “The guv says the princess won’t tell ’im—that she’s ’oled up in ’er room most days, same as you!  ’E’s worried, and _I_ — _I’m_ worried, Red—”

“I am _sick_ —” Red slices through his sentence like a dagger— “An’ _tired_ of hearin’ about you an’ your _guv_.  Yeah, I’m absolutely chuffed to bits that your confession didn’t go tits-up like mine, but jus’, for once, shut your bloody pie—”

“She sent you a letter, Red.”

Red fixes Yangus with the sourest look she can imagine, and throws the bottle at him.  It misses, and lands on the floor somewhere to his left with an echoey _thunk_.  Red barks a laugh, self-deprecatory and humourless.  _Can’t even break a bottle right._

“I know,” she says eventually.

“You ain’t opened it.”

“I _know_ ,” she says with more bite.

“Want me to—”

Red looks away into her fireplace, suddenly quiet again.   “Do what you want.”

 

So Yangus does.  He finds the letter beneath a pile of charts and books with a hundred-and-one folded down page corners.  The pristine white envelope is smudged and rumpled, but the wax seal on the back remains intact.  Yangus hesitantly rips a corner, not wanting to damage the contents, before sliding a finger in and tearing the rest of the envelope open.

 

Opening the folded letter, he casts a tentative glance at Red.  She’s still lost in the dying embers.

“You…want me to read it?”

“Do what you want,” Red repeats, her voice a crafted monotone.

“Out loud like?”

“ _Yangus_.”  The single snap of his name contains mixed messages, even he can tell: _do what you want, I said—please tell me what she wrote—throw it away, get out!_

So he reads it.

 

“ _Dearest Red,_

“ _It is with a heavy heart and con—con…consk…conskence—_ ”

“Conscience,” Red suggests.  Yangus looks up.  She’s already vexed—he can tell by the tightness of her bare shoulders, though she remains turned away.

“Yeah, prolly.  Thanks.”  He clears his throat and resumes reading.  “ _And_ conscience _that I write you.  I regret the way we left things, and I fear I mis…under…stood your intent-ions that day, tho…_ though _I am unsure.  Please know that I think of you as very dear to me and wish you to be able to talk to me openly and hon-estly.  I am also writing to let you know that in light of your words that day I have called off my en…_ engaggment _?  To Prince Charmless—oh, er,_ Charmles _, as I feel I cannot commit myself to—_ ”

The letter is ripped from Yangus’s hands, and he finds himself staring into the hellfires that are Red’s eyes.  He takes an unconscious step back.  “Cor blimey, Red, I know I ain’t good at readin’ but—”

“Not _that_ , you twit!”  Red’s already scanning the letter, starting from the top where Yangus first began reading.  “She says she’s called off ’er _engagement_!” Red looks up, and there’s something young and nervous in her eyes.  “She ain’t gettin’ married.”

Yangus looks back dumbly, and after a few seconds Red gives up waiting for an answer and goes on to reading the second half of the letter.  “She says her old man don’t understand, the Argonian royals are kickin’ up a fuss, an’ that—”  All the colour drains out of Red’s face in a second, and her knuckles go a similar white as she suddenly grips the letter almost hard enough to tear it.

“Wot?” Yangus asks, and then, after a moment of shaking silence, asks again.  “Red, wot is it?  Wot’s she say?”

Yangus sees the movement of Red’s throat as she swallows once, twice; she licks her lips and uncertainly meets his eyes.  “She says,” Red begins, small and quiet and very un-Red-like, “she weaselled directions outta your guv and is plannin’ to come _visit_ me.”


	4. Chapter 4

Red doesn’t know how it’s come to this.

 

Well, that’s a lie—she _does_ : With no response to her letter indicating otherwise, Medea had indeed taken it upon herself to acquire a ship and sail to just outside Pickham, where she had left it moored under the watchful eyes of a few soldiers.  Then, accompanied by only Eight, she had continued on foot to Red’s home…where she currently stands in the middle of the living room, looking comically out of place in her silks and rich colours.

(And Eight, of course, has disappeared off somewhere with Yangus.)

 

 

“Your home is very nice,” Medea says, plucking a book off the shelf and thumbing through the well-worn pages.  She sounds _sincere_ , which makes it worse, somehow.  “A definite improvement to the stables.”

Red, hiding in the kitchen under the guise of fetching drinks, winces.  Oh, how she’d love to forget that her first meeting with the princess was when she _bought_ her.  The shame still prickles Red’s skin, even if Medea _had_ been a horse back then.

 

Red pours a drink for Medea and takes her own swig from the bottle—she’s not sure if it’s alcoholic but _Goddess_ she hopes it is—and finally decides to join the princess.

Medea’s standing by the window now, and the orange light from outside makes the starkness of her dark hair all the more beautiful to Red, who’s trying hard to pretend her fingers aren’t shaking as she passes the glass to Medea.  Medea takes a sip, and a complicated expression passes over her face for a moment.

“This is…interesting,” she says.  “What…is it, exactly?”

“Uh,” Red replies intelligently.  “I’unno.”

Medea chuckles, and takes another sip anyway.  They make small talk for what feels like an awkward eternity, but Red can only seem to see the delicate movement of Medea’s lips around the rim of the glass.

 

* * *

 

 

“I wanted to talk to you.”  Those words ground Red with a thump, but before she can even attempt to form any sort of coherent response, Medea continues.

“As I said in my letter, I wished to…clarify what you said that day.  At first I assumed you were just complimenting me, and I felt flattered, but when you fled, I…I was confused!  I wondered if your words had…had some sort of…concealed meaning.  …Did they?”

Red looks at Medea, and _oh Goddess_ , _that_ was a mistake.  The princess’s green eyes are wide and imploring, and Red wishes more than anything for the safe haven of her rocking chair.  But her legs won’t move for the tremor that’s taken root in them, and anyway it would probably be rude to sit down when Medea’s standing.  Would it?  It’s Red’s house after all, shouldn’t she be able to sit when she pleases—

“Whatever your intentions,” Medea is saying, and Red realises too late it’s because she hasn’t replied, “you made me reconsider my…my choices, and I felt I could no longer commit to my engagement to Prince Charmles.  But then I considered that that may have made you feel awkward, or like I was giving significance to your words where there hadn’t been any, and so I felt I had to see you in person, to set everything straight!”  Medea’s hands are bunched into determined fists now, having set her glass down on the windowsill, and her pale cheeks are flushed with the breathless aftermath of her urgent babbling—and she’s _cute_ , Red can’t stop thinking, _damn me to the depths of Hell, she’s_ adorable.

 

And Red has to tell her.  Has to tell her now, before the moment is gone.

 

 

“I like ya,” Red blurts out.  Her mind is a few seconds behind her mouth, and she keeps speaking before it has a chance to catch up.  “I mean I _like_ like ya, like…like Charmless likes ya.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, Red can tell immediately.  Medea is silent, her hands dropping to her sides.

“Charmles only ever liked me as a trophy to put on display to everyone,” she says quietly.

“No!  No, that’s not what I...meant.”  Red sighs short and sharp through her nose, running her hand through her hair.  “I meant…I meant I like ya like…like Charmless _should’a_ liked ya, like...like Yangus likes Eight!”

It’s better this time, Red…thinks?  Medea stiffens, then relaxes, then wrings her hands a little, then clasps the folds of her dress, then drops them again.

 _Well, in for a penny…_   “An’ I know…it’s not— _proper_ , ’cuz you’re a…a bloody _princess_ , an’ I’m a bandit, an’ yer gonna marry some hoity-toity well-to-do sort—”

“I’ll do nothing of the kind.”

Red’s eyes snap up from where they’d slid to her feet.  “You wot?” she lets slip, forgetting her manners.

“I _said_ ,” Medea repeats, cheeks puffed out in a pout, “I’ll do nothing of the sort.  I have had—just _enough_ with people dictating my life to me!  My love life at that!

“A princess can very well marry a bandit if she so wishes it!  Rules and tradition be _damned_!”

 

And before Red can even ruminate on Medea using a curse word, albeit a tame one, in her soft posh voice, Medea crosses the few steps between them and kisses her.

She tastes of the drink Red had given her, and Red still can’t figure out if it’s the dregs of the beverage on the princess’s tongue or the softness of Medea’s mouth that are making her light-headed.  But whichever it is, she thinks she’ll probably be hungover for quite a while.


End file.
